Uttam rails at KCR for putting ITIR in limbo

TPCC President ridicules the Chief Minister for failing to secure funds for Information Technology Investment Region though he backed the Prime Minister and supported the BJP candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has skwered Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for the non-implementation of Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) project on outskirts of
the city.

Addressing a press conference at Shamshabad on Saturday, Uttam Kumar Reddy recalled that the ITIR was approved by the then Congress governments in the undivided Andhra Pradesh and the Centre had approved. This was endorsed by the present TRS government and Governor E S L Narasimhan, in his first address in the Assembly on June 11, 2014, he said, "The face of IT sector would be transformed in the Telangana State with the implementation of the prestigious ITIR in Hyderabad.

A total of Rs 2.13 lakh crore investment would have been channelled into various units in the State and opened 52 lakh employment opportunities for our youth, directly or indirectly over the next 10 years." This was repeated by the Governor in his second address in the Assembly on March 7, 2015, in which he said, "The Government of India has cleared ITIR project with investment potential of Rs 2.19 lakh crore generating 15 lakh new jobs."

Uttam Kumar Reddy said the ITIR project had all clearances and only needed implementation to create nearly 50 lakh jobs. However, even after three years, neither TRS government in Telangana State nor BJP Government at the Centre moved a bit to implement the project.

To hide this failure, he said, IT Minister K Taraka Rama Rao was writing letters to the Centre seeking clarity. "Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao himself had praised the ITIR project on several occasions including at a public meeting at Chevella. He simply failed to implement the project which could have provided jobs to lakhs of unemployed youth. The TRS government maintained status quo on ITIR. No funds were spent, no investments were attracted and not a single job was created out of ITIR," he said.

The TPCC chief pointed out that the previous Congress government had developed Ranga Reddy district into a major investment destination. Several projects, especially in the IT sector were initiated in the Ranga Reddy district. Several areas like Shamshabad were brought on the global map through major projects like the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.
However, TRS government had completely neglected Ranga Reddy district and halted all the development works, including those which were cleared by the previous Congress regime like ITIR project," he said.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said KCR had supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decisions like demonetisation and GST and also supported the BJP’s candidates for President and Vice-President’s posts. However, he failed to secure justice for Telangana State, he said.

The TPCC chief also ridiculed KCR's fresh promise of providing 84,000 jobs. "These are not new jobs being created by the TRS government. They are vacant posts which existed at the time of formation of TRS government, he said.